Brimham Rocks given a Chinese name

The Chinese names for North Yorkshire landmarks have been revealed, following a campaign by VisitBritain.

Brimham Rocks will embrace its oriental title of ‘a lot of rocks in different shapes’ to promote the National Trust site to the growing Chinese tourist market.

After 10 weeks of voting by the Chinese public as part of the ‘GREAT Names for GREAT Britain’ campaign run by national tourism agency VisitBritain, Brimham Rocks joins UK landmarks and attractions including The Shard, The Loch Ness Monster, Hadrian’s Wall and Saville Row as highlights of a list released ahead of Chinese New Year.

Stephanie Hinchcliffe, visitor services manager at Brimham Rocks, said: “Many of the names of the rocks date back to Victorian times and visitors are still having fun coming up with new names even today. We are very excited that Brimham Rocks have captured the imagination of the Chinese audience.”

The campaign, which aims to promote some of the UK’s favourite places and foods to a Chinese audience, also saw Harrogate and Fountains Abbey feature within a longer list of 101 UK tourist attractions renamed in Chinese. Harrogate’s most popular Mandarin name was voted for as ‘Hai-le Gate’ (Happy Sea Gate) and Fountains Abbey taking on the simple ‘an abbey with fountains’.

Sibh Megson, marketing manager for Visit Harrogate, the destination marketing organisation for Harrogate District, said: “We are straight talking in Yorkshire, so to find that the most popular Chinese name for Brimham Rocks translates as “a lot of rocks in different shapes” is perfect.

“This whole campaign has been an interesting lesson in understanding how another culture thinks. It is important to be receptive to this if we want to welcome more visitors from this rapidly growing market in the coming years.”

China is now the world’s largest outbound market, with visitors to Britain already spending £500 million. VisitBritain has ambitious plans to double the value of that market by 2020 and to ensure that growth is spread across the nations and regions.